Isolation
by Scrawling Maelstrom
Summary: An offhanded remark leads the Xmen to Mexico to save another young mutant. The problem is, there's someone else hunting her as well, with all-too-familiar weaponry....
1. Prologue

**Editor's Note:** For those who are interested, the little conversation between Kitty and Kurt is based on real-world facts and groups. There is a Southern Poverty Law Center (known as SPLC) lead by Morris Dees, they do fight and keep track of hate groups, and the Metzger case was a famous turning point in fighting hate groups in 1991. If you're interested in how mutants would likely be treated in real life, looking through the SPLC site is a real eye-opener to how and why hate groups exist, and how they can be fought. You can find out more about them at splcenter.org

****

**Isolation, part 1**

****

When Kitty came down to make coffee sometime about 3am, she was mildly surprised to see the light on in the kitchen. Since she already passed by John, the "sleepless wonder", in the rec room, she knew it couldn't be him foraging for a late-night snack. So who was it this time? Maybe Logan again? No matter what, she should be courteous and announce herself before she stepped in.

"Hey, there," she called softly as she approached the kitchen. "Who's up?"

"Just me, Kätzchen," Kurt's voice called back, also quiet.

She entered the room. He was perched on the edge of a counter, as usual, a large, steaming mug of coffee in both hands. His disheveled state and sweat pants told Kitty he'd just woken up not too long ago, and the pot of coffee a few feet away couldn't be more than a few minutes old.

"I didn't think you needed the light to see by," she said.

He shrugged and took a sip. "I don't, but I also don't want to startle anyone. The light is warning."

"Rough night, huh?" she asked sympathetically. He grunted an acknowledgement, and she continued, "Anything you want to talk about?"

"Not right now, but thank you for your concern."

She took a mug from a nearby cupboard. "Mind if I help myself to a cup?

"Feel free," he replied.

She poured a cup half full, put three teaspoons of sugar in it, then went to the refrigerator for cream.

"I see you are one who dilutes their coffee," he observed as she filled the cup up the rest of the way with half-and-half.

"Do you like it black like Miss Munroe?" Kitty asked as she stirred.

Kurt spat out his coffee in shock. Kitty phased instinctively, but she wasn't close enough to be in danger of being doused.

"Do you realize what you just _said?_" he asked incredulously.

"I asked you if you take your coffee black?" Kitty asked back, bewildered.

Kurt grabbed a paper towel off the nearby roll with his tail and wiped up the small mess on the tile floor. "You asked me if 'I like _it_ black like Miss Munroe,'" he clarified.

One of Kitty's hands flew to her mouth in shock. "OmiGod. I didn't mean it _that_ way!"

Kurt laughed and shook his head. "Obviously." He tossed the towel in the "compost" garbage can. "A noodle flogging for you, Kätzchen. And to answer what you _meant_ to ask, I only take sugar. I like to be able to taste the flavor of the coffee."

"I can't believe I slipped like that," she muttered, rubbing her eyes. "After that report I'm working on, I can't believe I said that."

He cocked his head. "You have been up all this time, working on a report?"

"Oh, I'm on a roll." She tried some of her coffee and nodded in satisfaction. "Once I get going like this, I have to finish it. Besides; it's Friday night."

"Saturday morning, now. It must be very interesting to hold your attention so late at night."

She gave a nervous smile. "You're gonna think it's really bizarre."

He gave a single, soft laugh. "What is it? A paper on training cockroaches?"

She shook her head. "It's an examination of hate and hate groups."

His smile faded and he set his cup to the side. "That is a difficult subject to work with."

"Yeah, some of the stuff is just disgusting. But, hey, it's not like I haven't seen it before. My dad contracts for the Southern Poverty Law Center when they need an extra hand."

"I do not know this law firm."

Kitty pulled up a seat at the table. She set her mug down between sips.

"The Southern Poverty Law Center was made in the late 70's, I think," she said. "The guy who runs it is Morris Dees. The whole idea is to give legal help to victims of hate crimes. It's all done for free, since a lot of the people who need the help don't have any money to pay for it." She gave a broad grin. "In the 90's, this guy shut down David Metzger." Upon seeing that Kurt did not recognize the name, she elaborated, "David Metzger was a Neo Nazi in Oregon, and one of his followers beat a black foreign exchange student to death. Mister Dees convinced the court that Metzger was really responsible for it, and they fined him, like, millions of dollars and gave it all to the student's family. Metzger's whole Nazi group just collapsed without the money. My dad helped with the caseload for that. He was even there at the trial. It was fantastic."

Kurt shook his head in bewilderment. "I still do not understand why Nazi groups are allowed to exist here. They should be shut down and their people thrown in jail."

She took a sip and made a sour face that had nothing to do with her coffee. "Believe me, we're throwing them in jail. But now while they're in jail they're making these racist prison brotherhood things. It's like they're using the opportunity to do recruiting. It's scary stuff. And now there's this new 'brotherhood' that has me real worried. Calls itself 'Friends of Humanity.'"

"Just the name makes me worry."

"It should. I'll give you a hint: Senator Kelly used to be one of their biggest supporters. So was Stryker."

"Mutant haters?" Kurt asked softly.

She nodded. "This thing is starting to look like the KKK in the 20s. Used to be the Klan had all sorts of support in Washington. It was, like, _the_ thing to belong to. Now FOH is the trendy thing. There's all sorts of senators and military types that belong to this thing. One guy has me really worried. He's one of Stryker's old buddies, name of Larry Trask. I'm just thanking God that I didn't see President McKenna on their member list."

A half-smile tugged at Kurt's lips. "And just how do you come to know these things, Kätzchen? I do not think this list is public knowledge."

She shrugged. "Some of it is. They've got a website up, and some of the more famous people are listed there as contributors. They're really lambasting Senator Kelly for pulling out of the club. You'd think he'd gone and joined Al Qaida or something."

His eyes widened in surprise. "You look at websites for these people?"

"I've got bookmarks of practically every hate group out there. Everything from Aryan Nation to World Church of the Creator. If you're going to fight the enemy, you've got to know what they're doing, no matter how ugly it is." She looked into her coffee and muttered, "Maybe if we'd paid more attention to Hitler, he wouldn't have gotten the chance to kill six million of us."

Kurt nodded solemnly. "Or one and a half million of us." She looked up at him quizzically, and he continued, "Many of those who raised me were Romani."

"Really? Wow." She grinned as she raised her mug up in both hands, elbows resting on the table. "Looks like we're both screwed twice. A mutant _in_ a minority."

"It was… a bit worse than that for me, I'm afraid. Many of the Rom consider me marimé, if not beng."

She blinked with confusion. "Um… I'm sorry, but I don't know what that means."

"Beng means 'devil.' Marimé means 'impure' or 'dirty.'" Kitty stared at him with wide eyes, and he quickly put up his hands and continued, "Wait, wait, I am not alone with this label. Cats and dogs are considered marimé. A woman has two parts of her body. From the waist up she is considered vujo, or pure. From the waist down, she is marimé."

"Look, no offense to your parents, but that's the most sexist BS I've ever heard," she said, a bit harshly.

He shrugged. "Perhaps it is. But since I am also considered marimé by so many, I did not think so much about it. From the reactions I have gotten from other Rom, it must have been God's will that Mama Margali found me first. I do not think anyone else would have touched me."

" 'Found' you? You mean, she wasn't your real mother?"

"No. And Papa Bashaldé is not my birth father. I was found in an overgrown field as a baby."

"I guess your mom must have gotten in serious trouble for picking you up."

"A kris was called -- a meeting of the tribes," he clarified, seeing she did not understand. "A Rom council. This is how serious law matters are settled. They believed I was an evil spirit, and Margali and Bashaldé did not. They settled the matter by going to the local church. I did not smoke when the holy water touched me. I did not cry when Father Ehrlichmann held me and blessed me." He smiled a little. "In fact, I was the only baby he had seen who did not even fuss during baptism. According to Papa Bashaldé, I just watched him as he sat me in the fountain and ladled water over me." He sighed and looked down and away. "I miss Father Ehrlichmann. He has been dead for years, but I still miss him."

He took a sip of his own coffee. At the same time, he reached out with his tail and deftly picked up the coffee pot.

"In any case," he said as he refilled his mug, "Papa Bashaldé has only been so popular with the others. His mother was not Rom, which is to say she was gadjé. Many of the circus were gadjé as well." He set the pot back on the warmer and added a spoon of sugar to his coffee. "For many Rom, this all makes him almost as marimé as me. It is so complicated. I do not agree with all of it. It is hard to agree to traditions that consider you 'unclean.'"

There was a soft knock on the entryway. Kitty and Kurt looked up to see Isidro there. He had the look of someone who had been trying to sleep, but just couldn't.

"Don't mean to butt in, but would you mind if I had some coffee, too?" he asked.

Kurt lifted the pot with his tail again. "Help yourself to a cup. We can always make more."

He thanked them both and grabbed a mug from the cupboard. Both Kurt and Kitty knew what was likely on the man's mind. In a few hours, Isidro and Hank would be leaving the institute, and Isidro would be talking face to face with the FBI.

"Do you know who you'll be talking to?" Kitty asked him.

Isidro shrugged as Kurt poured for him. "Somebody Hank says he knows really well. Her name's Gloria, I think. At least, he knows her on a first name basis, and that's got to count for something, right?" He sat down at the table, at an angle that he could talk to everyone. "I don't know why this is bugging me so much. Hank's got everything worked out. He's got all the evidence, he's got photos, he knows more than I do, so he's the one who's going to get most of the heat. It's just…." He touched the back of his head. "I'm not sure who to trust anymore. Part of me's still thinking there's a conspiracy here and we'll both disappear into some laboratory." He rotated the cup slowly in his hands. "But if I don't do anything, we'll never find the fucks that did this. Everything's so screwed up."

His concerns did have some merit. Xavier and his Institute were now well-known in the FBI and CIA, and Isidro's association with them, however accidental, would surely color their decisions. And no one knew whether his abductors were aligned with the government, or if they had moles in such positions.

"No matter what happens, Isidro, we will stand by you," Kurt told him. "If you are abducted, we will come for you. If you are harassed, we will provide support."

Isidro nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I know up here." He touched his forehead. "It's just down here--" he touched his chest "--that I'm having trouble with." He took a long sip of his coffee. "Well, that and Granma's been loosing chickens again. Her whole town's up in arms over a chupacabras." He laughed, though a bit nervously. "I'll be missing the soap opera if the FBI keeps me for very long."

Kurt mulled the foreign word around in his mind for a few moments. "Did I hear you correct? A 'goat sucker?'"

Isidro gave him a wry smile. "Yeah, you heard right. You've never heard of the terrible chupacabras? The thing that comes in the night and attacks your farm animals? It's kind of like a Mexican Loch Ness monster. Everyone says they've seen it, but no one has any evidence, except for a bunch of dead animals that could have been killed by anything."

"Oh, yeah, I think I heard about that thing," Kitty said, leaning her head on her fist. "It's supposed to be this short little thing with spikes growing out of its back or a long red tongue or something."

" 'Or something' is as good a description as any. Everyone's seen something different." He laughed again, a little more confidant, now. "Hey, what do you want to bet it's really some poor mutant that's being used as a scapegoat?"

"Ooh, don't say that so loud, or we'll be on a trip to Mexico before you know it," Kitty whispered.

"No, he may have a point," Kurt said thoughtfully. "It's happened to me enough times."

"Nah, it's probably a bunch of coyotes come down from the hills," Isidro said, dismissing it all with a wave of his hand.

"Isidro, I'm serious," Kurt pressed on. "It would only take the professor a few minutes to look."

"Man, that stupid chupacabras's been seen everywhere from Puerto Rico to Baja. You can't tell me a mutant's responsible for all that."

"Not all of that, no, but Logan says there are no coincidences, and from what I've seen while I've been here, I'm starting to agree with him. God had you mention this for a reason."

"Twenty bucks says you don't find a thing."

"Isidro, you don't _have_ twenty dollars with you."

"I will if you take me up on it."

**:**

Santos considered himself relatively lucky. In his small town, he had managed to avoid the goat sucker's attacks. His chickens and goats remained unmolested, his pens unbroken. Just to be sure, however, he rested with his shotgun loaded in the corner. One frightened bleat, one strangled crow, one unaccustomed bark from his dog, and he'd be outside with that shotgun, ready to shoot. He wasn't losing any of his livestock tonight, nor any other night.

It was his dog that awoke him that night, barking madly from the front room. As Santos grabbed for the longarm, he heard furniture tip and crash to the floor, accompanied by more frantic barks. Thieves. He leapt out of bed, crossed the small bedroom in two bounds, and stood at the threshold, weapon in both hands, poised for action. He peered out into the dark front room, lit only by the half-moon's light from an open window. The dog was backed into the far left corner, its posture more fearful than aggressive. It was facing something to the right. Santos turned that way, shotgun up and ready to shoot. He could see the vague outline of someone small, crouched down with something in his arms. Had Juan's kid broken into his place _again_?

"Dammit, Paulo, this time I'm gonna wake up _both_ your mamma and daddy," he spat, lowering the shotgun. "Stand up! Now!"

There was a guttural hiss from "Paulo's" spot, and Santos saw the gleam of long teeth in the faint moonlight. His dog whined and cringed in the corner, and Santos' breath caught in his throat. _The goat sucker!_ It was as short as they all said it was, no more than three or four feet tall, with a dog's hind legs and a body lined with shaggy fur. It had hands tipped with claws, and it clutched several items, pressed tightly against its chest.

He brought his shotgun up and fired, but the thing was too fast, leaping out of the way. Santos chambered the next round and shot again, the scatterspray boring dozens of holes in his adobe wall. He heard a high-pitched, inhuman squeal, something clattered to the floor, and then the goat sucker was gone. He never got a good look at it, but he didn't need to. He knew what it was.

Flashlights shone outside, getting closer along with the sounds of running feet.

"Santos? What happened?" Paulo's young voice cried out. "What were you shooting at?"

"It was here," Santos panted, dropping the barrel of his shotgun. "The goat sucker was here. It got into the house."

"Mother of God," someone whispered.

They searched the room with flashlights. The evidence of Santos' words lay everywhere they cared to look. There were strange dusty tracks on the slab floor, claw marks on a wooden crate, and flecks of blood glistening on the wall, drying swiftly in the cold night air. And on the cement floor, close to the blood spatter, lay the item the goat sucker had dropped in its reckless flight: a dented can of beans.

TBC…


	2. The Hunt Begins

**Isoaltion, part 2**

"It's too bad you didn't accept that bet," Logan said.

Kurt looked over at him quickly. _"Was?"_

"Isidro's bet?" Logan went on. "The one that said the prof wouldn't find anything in Mexico?"

Kurt looked back out the window of the Blackbird. "For me to win, it meant things were bad enough for us to go there, and that meant someone was in trouble. I cannot bet on someone's pain."

True to form, when Xavier went into Cerebro earlier that day, he did indeed find a mutant down in Mexico. That in and of itself was hardly surprising, but they were within a few miles of Isidro's Grandmother's town. A closer look revealed a relatively young mutant, a girl whose powers couldn't have been active for more than a few months. Her form, from the hazy outline Xavier could see, was only vaguely human. Her legs were digigrade, her hands ended in claws, and her body was partially covered with patches of shaggy fur. Whether the poor girl could return to a more human form or not, Xavier could not tell.

Two things were for certain; she could easily pass for a "chupacabras," and she was frightened.

Xavier sent the three of them again, as they had worked so well in the past. Ororo was their pilot, Logan their tracker, and Kurt their "get us the Hell out of here _now_" backup. With any luck, the most Kurt would have to do was keep Ororo's seat warm, perhaps do some translating if their target only spoke Spanish.

"I hope our little girl speaks some English," Kurt said. "My Spanish is not the best, and it may sound strange to her."

"Oh? How?" Ororo asked, curious.

"There are differences between Castilian and what they speak in the Americas." He paused for a moment. "I suppose my Spanish to her would sound like my English to you, but not so fluent."

They were growing closer to their target, a small farming community in the middle of gentle, rolling, dusty hills. Though the Blackbird was still quite far away, her long range cameras brought the town in easy view. No electrical wires, no phone lines, and apparently no plumbing. The structures had the distinct look of being made by non-professional hands, the walls built with adobe bricks or cinder blocks and the roofs often just corrugated metal sheets. Half of the houses were one bedroom shacks. None of them had more than three rooms. Simple split wood and barbed wire fences, just enough to keep the farm animals in, enclosed small herds of goats. Long rows of crops reached behind the houses, all dotted with green sprouts. The only road in and out was a packed dirt path, and there were few vehicles around to travel upon it.

"This place is so dry," Kurt observed, watching the views on-screen. "How could anything grow here?"

"Oh, there are lots of methods," Ororo replied without looking away from the controls. "It all centers on irrigation control." She glanced back at Logan, sitting behind her. "Do you have anything in particular planned, Logan?"

He shrugged. "Get some scents from the outskirts, try not to attract too much attention. It'd be a lot easier at night, but it's not like we can just wait around."

Ororo set the Blackbird down behind one of the hills, far enough away to avoid being seen or heard. With any luck, they would never encounter any locals during their search. A couple of foreigners poking around in black leather suits wasn't exactly inconspicuous. Logan went to the back of the jet and grabbed a small pack from the corner, filled with food, water, and first aid supplies. God only knew what shape the girl was in.

"A word to the wise," Ororo said as she shut the Blackbird down. "I think this place might have been a silver mine at some point, because I'm picking up several tunnels and shafts below the surface. Could be that's where our little 'chupacabra' is hiding out."

"Sounds like a good place to start," Logan agreed, slinging the pack over his shoulder.

She gave a shallow, wry smile. "You'll pardon me if I just guard the entrances."

Kurt examined the screen carefully. The tunnels cris-crossed miles of terrain, and several of them were blocked by debris. These were the kind of things people got trapped in with regularity.

"I just hope she hasn't been trapped in one of these tunnels," he commended, half to himself.

"If we find a collie trying to get us to follow her, we'll know for sure," Logan said with a grin.

Kurt laughed. "I can see it now. 'What are you trying to say, Lassie? Did little Stefan fall down the mine shaft, break his ankle, give himself a concussion, and he needs his insulin shot? Is that what you're trying to tell me, girl?' "

"And that's just from two barks and a tail wag."

Logan put in his earplug and slipped on his throat mike, as did Ororo. The equipment was invisible to all but the closest inspection, and a quick mike check proved it was all working correctly. For the moment, there was a fair amount of echoing in the Blackbird, as the open mikes captured and broadcasted every sound, but once they left things would quiet considerably. Ororo lowered the gangplank, then gave Kurt's hand a brief squeeze before she left the pilot's seat.

"Sorry to leave you all cooped up for the duration," she apologized.

"And I hope to _remain_ 'cooped up for the duration', liebling," he said. "Boring means you are all safe and sound."

The two stood up together, and all three of them exited the plane.

"Need any help with the camo net?" Logan asked , turning halfway around.

"No, I can handle it," Kurt answered. "Remember I can reach any spot on the plane by myself."

"Okay. See you around, elf."

He and Ororo took off, hiking away under the warm noonday sun. Kurt hauled the desert camouflage out of its containment, a huge unwieldy pile of netting Logan derisively referred to as the "Blackbird cozy", and teleported up to the top of the jet to do a proper drape.

_Good thing I'm doing this now_, he thought, shifting back and forth on his bare feet. _A little longer in the sun and this jet will be burning the soles of my feet._

**:**

Angelou sighed through his nose and leaned back in his chair. Stupid tech. Stupid _experimental, prototype_ tech. They'd been using it to track the little mutie bitch for the past week, and it seemed that all it did was go down on them. His partner, Matt, turned about in his seat to face him.

"Lou, you're doing that nose-breathing-wheezy thing again," he warned. "Will you cut it out already?"

"This stupid thing just stopped working again," Angelou complained, gesturing to the setup with a broad wave of his arm. "This is, what, the twentieth time?"

Matt clenched his jaw. Angelou's constant complaining was annoying enough, but did he have to be clueless as well? How many times had he been told that the sensor only picked up _active_ mutant powers? It didn't home in on their DNA, for Christ's sake! Matt stood up in the small confines of the "camper shell" of the pickup truck, glaring at the back of Angelou's shaved head. When he got home, he was putting in for another partner. This idiot was driving him nuts.

"Just... go play FreeCell or check the mail or something, all right?" Matt asked, biting back a host of caustic remarks. "Maybe they sent us more news on Larry."

"Maybe I'll send 'Larry' an email on how much his stuff sucks," Angelou grumbled as he switched positions with Matt.

_Maybe we should send your ass back to the Hammerskins_, Matt thought. _Goddamn slam-dancing, sieg-heiling, beer-swilling bully-boy...._

As angry as Matt was, he still could not miss the piercing beep from the sensor console. A contact! And a _strong_ one!

"Whoa! Is it her?" Angelou asked, crowding in next to Matt.

"Dunno," Matt mumbled. "That's not the same beep we got for her...." As he spoke, the console gave another sound, this one lower-pitched and constant. "Ah, _that's_ her. We got her. Just give me a minute to home in...."

Their quarry was very close to Unit 6, now; maybe a half hour away at constant speed. Good. That meant he and Angelou would be finishing up soon, away from this God-forsaken dustbowl. Matt was getting awful sick of Lou's "wetback" jokes. Over the constant low pitch that indicated their target, that startling, piercing beep came up again. What the hell? Was the tracker getting _two different_ readings? Was there another mutant that strong in the area?

"What's with the beeping?" Angelou demanded, pointing at one of the two small speakers.

"Will you shut up?" Matt snapped. "Give me a chance!"

Angelou backed up a step, giving Matt room to breathe. Matt pulled up the information on both targets. The first one they knew quite well by then: they'd been tracking her all week. The second one was completely new, there and gone fast with a "periodic" power.

"We got another one," he said. "We've got her and someone else."

"Dude, check the library! Who is it?" Angelou asked, excited.

Matt felt an angry flush rise to his face. Even if it was standard operational procedure to check the signature against the library of "known mutants", there were only a few dozen or so mutants in that file. The chances were that this was an unknown. And this _idiot_ expected the blip to have some huge file all to itself....

Matt stared at the library entry on-screen, his eyes wide. "Fuck me gently with a chainsaw," he whispered. "He's in there."

"I _knew_ it!" Angelou crowed, pumping his fist in the air. "Who is it?"

Matt kept staring at the red-tagged file.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Mutant X108:

Aliases: Kurt Wagner, Nightcrawler, the Oval Office Assassin

Nationality: German citizen.

Career: Former circus performer.

Mutant X108 is a superb athlete and an Olympic-class acrobat; it is skilled at hand-to-hand combat and is a master of fencing. _Addition: records of the Oval Office Attack show that X108 moves at a speed far beyond what would be __considered attainable by training alone. X108 took down three NSA personnel in the time it took for one of them to fire his weapon. Do not engage in hand to hand combat._

Abilities: Mutant X108 has the ability to teleport itself, the clothes it is wearing, and, within limits, a certain amount of additional mass which is in contact with it. _Addition: is known to have teleported with other individuals weighing no less than 200 lbs during the Oval Office Attack._ Mutant X108 leaves behind a smoke cloud with a stench reminiscent of burning brimstone when teleporting. Its teleportation is invariably accompanied by the muffled sound of imploding air rushing to fill the vacuum left. _Addition: during the Oval Office Attack, X108 created such a dense cloud of this smoke that it blocked vision. Apparently, X108 had no problem seeing and attacking through it._

National Security Threat Level: EXTREMELY HIGH

Mutant X108's abilities make it extremely difficult to apprehend. It should be considered armed and dangerous at all times. _Addition: has not been seen since the Oval Office Attack. Possibly may have fled back to Germany, though surveillance of its circus home has been unproductive. The wound X108 sustained was minor, and it must be assumed to be in good health._

--------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a detailed description of the mutant, but Matt ignored it completely. His eyes were fixed on the monstrous picture displayed next to the information. He knew that photo. Everyone in the USA knew that photo. Matt gulped past the beating heart in his throat.

"Lou, it's the Oval Office Assassin," he said, his voice unsteady.

"Jesus-fucking-H-Christ," Angelou whispered.

Matt looked to the other screen, images taken from Unit 6's camera. So far, there was only the expected dusty hills and chaparral. It was miles away from the last "blip" of X108's powers, but that didn't mean much. X108 had an unknown range of teleportation; it might be able to jump that distance. Was X108 also tracking their little mutant, or was it just coincidence?

"Can Unit 6 take that thing?" Angelou asked.

Matt nodded. "I hope so. I'm feeding the telemetries now." Silently, he added, _This mission just went from a shakedown to a baptism of fire_.

Larry had better be right about his pet project this time. They couldn't afford a repeat performance of the "Westchester Disaster."

**:**

Logan knelt down to examine a set of very shallow tracks, a motion he made for Ororo's benefit. He already knew what they were.

"Coyote," he stated. "Little drops here to the side are chicken blood. Must've gotten into someone's henhouse last night. So much for their 'chupacabra.'"

"Logan, we know our mutant is around here," Ororo started.

"Ain't sayin' she's not." He straightened up. "I'm just sayin' whatever livestock's been lost, it ain't all her fault, if any of it is."

Kurt's voice came over the radio. "I guess you haven't found her yet?"

"No, not yet," Logan admitted. "We've only been to mine openings one and two, though. We're a half mile west of number three right now."

Kurt paused. Logan imagined him checking off points on the map, keeping track of their progress. "_Sehr gut_."

Ororo paid close attention to the dusty, parched land around them. They were heading into an area of ground so packed that it might as well be stone. Any tracks would be almost impossible to see, now. There had been very little rain here for some time, even though they were in the middle of Spring, and it seemed that the topsoil had been scoured from the land, leaving only bedrock. How long had these people been suffering through their drought? Perhaps she might be able to alleviate that before they left.

_First things first, Ororo,_ she thought. _Get the girl, then ease the drought_.

"Don't suppose you've seen anything on the scopes?" Logan asked dubiously.

"A rabbit or two," Kurt responded. "Nothing pink, though."

Logan snapped his fingers with mock disappointment. "And here I thought we were gonna have fun on this trip."

"You two are just _itching_ to get at that box of sock bunnies, aren't you?" Ororo asked.

Kurt gave a melodramatic sniff, and in a quailing voice, whimpered, "I miss my blue one already. It's _lonely_ in here."

"Well, you should have brought your little friend with you," Ororo chided, grinning.

"And your blankie," Logan added.

Kurt's voice was back to normal. "No need for a blanket." He sounded like he was standing and stretching. "I've already got one covering the jet."

Logan froze for a second, then his head snapped over to the right. He sniffed again, audibly this time, testing the scents on the slight breeze.

"I think I got someone," he said quietly. "Fresh scent, not more than a day old. Female, young, going through puberty. Might be our girl."

"Which way?" Ororo asked.

He gave a half-smile. "Mine shaft three."

He started jogging, then stopped and knelt down to the ground again, examining something Ororo couldn't see.

Logan pointed at a tiny dark spot, then looked up at her, his face grim with concern. "Whoever it is, she's hurt. She's left a blood trail."

He ran his fingers along the ground and came up with a single hair. It was tough, like the bristle of a boar, or a very short whisker. It was also exactly the same color as the dry earth beneath it. Logan carefully handed it to Ororo, nodding.

"Not a human hair, but it's got a human scent. It's our girl. Has to be."

Ororo was suddenly _very_ glad he came along. She had excellent tracking skills, honed on the Savannah, but as good as they were, she would never have seen any of this.

"She's hurt badly enough to drip blood on the ground, but not enough to leave a visible trail," Ororo stated, looking ahead to their destination; a large, untended hole in the earth. "She's probably still alive, but she'll need medical attention, Kurt. Get the bed ready."

"I'm pulling it out now," he replied. "Tell me if you need me."

Ororo and Logan took off at a dead run, their feet hitting against the hard ground without raising so much as a puff of dust. Suddenly, there was a strange, layered sound; an electrical arc, a dual-toned synthetic whine, and a "phunt" similar to an impacting PVC tube. Something slammed into Logan with the kinetic force of a freight train, lifting him off his feet and sending him flying to the right. Storm took to the air, an instinctive reaction that may well have saved her life. The sound repeated in quick succession, and the hillock near where she'd been standing was torn away in huge blocks. She looked to her right and caught sight of a large robotic, bipedal vehicle, frighteningly similar to the ones they had fought so recently. How had it gotten so close? There was no place for something so large to hide out here! It tracked her with its arm, firing again and again. Short, thick, orange-red beams glistened like the facets of a gemstone as they flew by her.

Then, to her horror, the enemy lowered its arm and faded from sight. She looked to the ground for its footprints, hoping to track it that way. Such a large robot must be very heavy and leave deep prints. But the ground was so packed, or the device so light, that it left nary a mark in the stripped ground. And now she had no idea where to dodge to. She flew up high in a random, zigzagging pattern, and clouds appeared in the previously clear sky.

"Storm!" Kurt shouted. "What is it! What's happening!"

"Another one of those amplifier suits!" she shouted back, as the winds raised her higher and higher into the air. "This one can go invisible! Logan's down!"

At first they were little cottony balls in the sky. They joined together into an overcast blanket of white and darkened to a menacing gray. Rain dotted the packed earth, instantly absorbed into a dark, dry spot. Then sheets of rain pelted the arid ground. In seconds, puddles began to form. She searched for the enemy, outlined in the constant shower. She looked for the splashes of its huge feet in the puddles. She was determined to find this suit, one way or another. It would have to possess Kitty's phasing ability to remain invisible through all this.

So where was it?

Nightcrawler appeared on the muddy ground, Logan wobbled to his feet, and still, no suit anywhere in sight. That left three possibilities. One, it _could_ phase. Please, Goddess, don't let that be true. Second, it had teleported away. That didn't make sense: why would it go all the way out here just to run away? That left the third option, and from the direction Logan and Kurt turned, they were thinking the same thing. Storm's pulse quickened and an involuntary shudder rippled through her body.

The hellish thing had gone into the mine shaft.

TBC…


	3. Battle in the Mine Shaft

**Isolation, part 3**

Rosa was ugly again. She couldn't control when it happened. It just did. She got that prickly feeling all over her body as the bristles and scales came out. She felt her arms and legs stretch, along with her fingers and toes. Her jaw felt all tingly. Her vision got blurry, all color disappeared, and then everything became sharper, somehow. She curled up tighter, holding her right side. Usually, she felt stronger when she was ugly like this, but now it didn't help. Now she just felt hot and sick, and her side hurt a lot. She wanted to go home. She wanted to go home so bad that it almost made her forget what had happened the first time she got ugly.

No, she couldn't go back. They'd kill her. A goat sucker had no place with humans. She wasn't a very good goat sucker, either. She hated blood. She tried doing that, once, like she was supposed to, but the blood made her sick to her stomach, and it tasted awful. She couldn't even do that right. She couldn't do anything right.

She laid there in the dark; the soothing, cool dark. She laid in the musty shaft where no one ever went. She smelled water. She lifted her ugly head at the smell. Was it raining outside? It had to be; there was no water down here. She should go get some water, but she just didn't feel like moving.

The smell of water grew stronger. Her bristles quivered. Something was moving toward her. Something big, almost as big as the mine shaft itself. She started to sit up. What was it? She peered down the shaft, but she still couldn't see anything. That wasn't right. She could feel it, but she couldn't see it? Now she was scared. Maybe a ghost was after her. Maybe the devil had come for her. She crouched on her ugly legs and bared her ugly fangs with a hiss. She couldn't speak, but she could scare. _Go away! I am the goat sucker! Get away from me!_

First she saw the uneven, flashing light, then she heard the footfalls, from further back in the tunnel. She saw a man and a woman running towards her. The man had long knives in his hands, and the woman was surrounded in lightning, like an angry angel. But they weren't what she felt so close to her! She hissed again and moved back. Her bristles stood on end, and she saw the vague outline of a huge man, glistening with water, as he reached for her. She scrambled back, still hissing, still baring her fangs. _Leave me alone! I'll bite you! I mean it! Leave me alone!_

The huge transparent man's head seemed to swivel around, and suddenly Rosa could see "him" completely. It was some kind of robot. It pointed at her with its arm, and she jumped back and to the side. A bright blob of light flew out from its hand and blew a hole in the stony wall where she had been standing. When the wall exploded, the rocks that flew off hit Rosa in the head, on the shoulder, and in the chest. She fell down, her head spinning, and heard the man behind the robot scream with anger.

**:**

Logan howled and leapt at the robot and came down on its back with all six claws, intending to penetrate its torso. But for all the force he could muster, all the velocity he had, the claws skittered away, somehow deflected an inch away from the suit's white "skin." What the _hell_? The suit spun around, backhanding Logan across the shaft where the force of his impact splintered an already rotting support beam.

Storm acted next. The lightning charging across her body, the only light they had to see by, leapt out to the foe. With all that water still dripping off of it, it should be an excellent conductor. But the electricity arced harmlessly around it, never once touching so much as a finger. It had some kind of forcefield, and it was obviously strong enough to deflect her and Logan's attacks. How much power did that field take? Could she overload it with constant lightning strikes? Who would run out of strength first? She fired again, trying not to think of the dark. Trying not to see the walls of this tunnel.

The suit was on the move, as devastatingly quick as the first ones had been. In these close quarters, Storm was at an awful disadvantage. Nightcrawler teleported up to the suit's head, wrapping himself around in an attempt to blind, then teleporting away as it grabbed at him. Logan came in for another slice while the thing was distracted. But Logan did not penetrate, his swipe only resulting in a shower of cool, blue sparks, and Nightcrawler could not stay long enough to be a true hindrance. They tried the same attack mode that worked so well against the first enemy they fought, a lifetime ago in the West Virginia mountains; each one diving in, attacking, and diving away. But this fight didn't begin to compare to the one waged against the demon in the false church. The amplification suit was unwounded, not to mention faster, and it was unburdened with pain or distracting emotions. The X-men weren't making any headway at all.

"Kurt!" Storm ordered. "Get the girl and go! Get her out of here!"

He didn't want to leave her and Logan alone, but it looked like he was useless for this fight. He teleported behind the suit, to where he first heard the animalistic hiss. Their mutant wasn't hard to find. Not for him, at least, who could see in the deepest dark as well as brightest day. He would not have known this was a little girl if he hadn't been advised beforehand. She laid next to some rusting metal rods, a small and spindly creature, her legs long and digigrade like a cat's. Tough, bristly fur covered much of her body. That which was without bristles, including much of her face, was covered instead with tiny, jagged, skink-like scales. The hands were still manipulatory, but the fingers were unusually long, covered with scales, and tipped with claws. She had a slight muzzle, and the teeth looked like they were from a possum, slender and needle-sharp. It was the eyes that got to him the most, though. There were four of them, one large on top of one small, but otherwise positioned in the "expected" places on her face. They were glossy and dark, without pupil, iris, or sclera: just black, bulbous, and "shelled over" like an insect's. This was, without a doubt, the most disturbing and ugly form he had ever seen.

Lord, the poor, sweet girl. No wonder she was hiding out in a mine shaft like this.

She struggled to rise from her spot on the ground. Fresh, warm blood flowed from the side of her face, and she was holding her left side. He prayed that the teleport itself wouldn't kill her. Before she had a chance to raise her head, he gathered her in his arms and was gone, rematerializing in the Blackbird's interior. He blinked the sudden light away as his eyes adjusted. The girl underneath him convulsively shuddered and moaned. _Please don't be sick, please don't be sick, please don't be sick...._

She turned her face toward him and froze. She opened her unnaturally large mouth, lined with frighteningly sharp teeth, and looked like she was trying to scream, but no sound came out. She tried to break away from him. He quickly set her on the bed he had previously unfolded and pinned her in place by her shoulders.

"I be sorry, but I must be fast," he told her in Castilian. "I be no devil and you be no devil. I not take you to Hell. Stay here. We help you soon."

She shivered, terrified, as he let her go. _I'm so sorry I can't stay with you, little one, but my teammates need me. Please forgive me. We'll be back as soon as possible._ He put his right hand on her scaly forehead and said a quick prayer. Then he moved off of her and was gone in an implosion of blue, leaving the child trembling in his wake.

**:**

Back in the mining tunnel, things went from bad to worse. Storm stayed back out of the thing's reach while Logan distracted it, but neither of them had made a dent in its armor. She hit it with joule over joule of electricity, and that forcefield didn't so much as flicker. Was she somehow recharging it with each strike? Or was its power supply that well insulated and that strong? And the walls were starting to close in, even if they didn't physically move. It was getting harder and harder not to suddenly bolt for the exit.

Nightcrawler teleported back just as the enemy finally got a good shot in on Storm. The orange/red faceted energy hit her somewhere on the side, and continued out through her back. She staggered away as Logan came in again. She fell as the suit grabbed Logan around his waist with both massive hands and proceeded to crush. The light was gone, now. Even Nightcrawler could barely see. The suit raised one foot above Storm, and Nightcrawler suddenly flashed back to that horrid, horrid night in March, when these things stepped on every human in sight, crushing them as flat as paper in the blink of an eye, and he just stood there while men died. Frozen, immobile, helpless, impotent....

_Not again. Never again._

He bent down and picked up a piece of rusty rebar. He wasn't letting that thing crush anyone this time. No, he wasn't. If his blows couldn't get through their armored plate, then perhaps this would. He held the metal in front of him and teleported onto the suit's back.

He materialized on top of his foe. A substantial portion of his improvised weapon did not.

Logan wasn't sure what happened. It was all so fast. In one instant, Storm was down, their light was gone, a huge mechanical hand grabbed him around the waist, and Nightcrawler was screaming something in German. Suddenly a muffled explosion sounded inside the amplifier suit's torso. A hole appeared in that torso, level with Logan's head, and a rusty piece of something shot out of that hole. That bit rebounded off of its forcefield and imbedded itself in another part of its armor, shattering the white plate as if it was made of bisque. The enemy dropped Logan and convulsed, energy arcing wildly _inside_ the boundaries of its forcefield, lighting up the tunnel with purplish-white sparks. All in the space of less than a second. Then, as if in slow motion, the suit fell backwards. Its convulsions lessened to twitches. The great electrical arcs reduced to tiny tendrils of unsteady light.

Logan leapt forward while he had the time and took a swipe at the thing's leg. His instincts were right: its forcefield was gone. In short order, before the feeble light died completely, he lopped off the thing's other leg, both arms, and head. A tingle ran through his body as he worked, subtle little jolts of energy from the dying suit that would have sent anyone else into seizures.

" 'Crawler!" he shouted, as he finished his grim duty. "Storm! You still alive?"

"Logan," Storm's voice called unsteadily. "I can't see."

"I can't either, darlin'," he said. "Gimme a second. Kurt?"

Kurt had not yet responded. Logan pulled a glowstick from a pocket and snapped it into activation. The amplifier suit nearby lay in pieces, blood pooling under a gaping hole in its chest. Ororo laid against the far wall, her hand over her lower right side, just above her hip. She was trembling badly, but she was conscious and aware. Further down the tunnel laid assorted cans, almost all empty, along with a can opener. A candle lantern hung on a nail from a wooden support beam, about the height comfortable for a child. Several rusty poles of rebar laid in a neat pile nearby. Three of them were tied with wire into a rough tripod over an open container of what smelled like sterno. Only then did Logan recognize the distinct, ribbed shape of the rebar in the shrapnel that exploded from the suit's chest. What did Kurt do? Teleport a hunk of metal into the thing?

"Dammit, Kurt, answer me!" Logan shouted, lifting the glowstick above his head. "You know how fuckin' hard it is to find you in the dark like this!"

"... here...."

He could barely hear Kurt, even though the elf's scent said he wasn't more than twenty feet away. Logan moved quickly to the sound of his friend's voice. Kurt's form faded into view as the light grew stronger. He was gasping for breath, facedown in the middle of the tunnel. Logan tossed the glowstick back closer to Ororo and helped Kurt sit against the wall. He seemed stunned, blankly looking through Logan instead of at him.

"Logan... do I still have arms?" Kurt asked.

"Yeah, why?" Logan answered warily.

"Because I cannot feel them past my shoulders."

Logan lifted Kurt's left arm for him while Kurt watched with detached interest. There didn't seem to be anything wrong. The armored sleeve was unscathed, the bones whole and the skin intact. If anything, the hand itself was abnormally warm.

Logan slung Kurt's arm around his shoulder and hauled him to his feet. "Whadja do back there, elf? Teleport a rod into the thing?"

"I... I couldn't think of a-another way... to...."

Kurt's voice trailed off as he looked in the direction of the fallen enemy. As he saw the glistening pool slowly inch its way out from under the shattered torso, he became aware of a horrible smell; the stench of death. The pilot was dead, and he had killed him

Logan felt Kurt's pace slacken, saw his head turn in the direction of the corpse. He shook Kurt roughly and forced him to keep walking.

"Ain't got no time for that, 'Crawler," he grunted. "Storm needs an evac."

"Storm?" he asked, looking around quickly.

She rested oddly, with her legs propped up against the wall and her back on the floor of the shaft. She pressed a hand to her side, in the same area Kurt thought he had seen her take a shot. Though she didn't appear to be bleeding, she was shivering, her breathing rapid and shallow. She stared up at the roof of the tunnel, fear, determination, and pain all visible on her face. With Logan's help he stumbled to her side, his arms hanging limp like those of a doll.

As Kurt's shadow passed between her and the green light of the glowstick, Ororo closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. "Kurt, get me out of here. Now. Get me out of this tunnel."

He gently curled his tail under her back, lifting her ever so slightly. "Liebe, your wound...."

"By the time you carry me to the jet, I'll be in worse shape than from teleporting," she blurted out. "Kurt, I'm begging you, _get me out of here."_

Her voice held an edge of mounting panic. Kurt wrapped his tail around her torso and pulled her to him. She let go of her side and clung to his chest. He spared a glance back at Logan.

"I'll come back for you," he promised.

Logan nodded, and Kurt was gone.

He did not rematerialize inside the Blackbird. There was a frightened young child in there, and he had no idea where she might be by then. Instead, he took the safe route, first appearing on top of the cockpit, where he could just see inside past the camouflage netting. The girl was still in that animalistic form, and she was still curled up on the bed. Good.

"Can you handle one more trip, liebe?" Kurt asked softly. She nodded, and he stroked her hair with the tip of his tail. "Hold on."

**:**

Rosa no longer knew what to expect. For the second time in two months, her world had flown apart. First she was cursed as a chupacabras, and now a robot had attacked her and a devil had taken her away. A devil with a European accent, who spoke poorly.

"I be sorry, but I must be fast," he said to her. "I be no devil and you be no devil. I not take you to Hell. Stay here. We help you soon."

When he put his hand on her forehead, she thought he was going to steal her soul, but then he said the name of Jesus instead. And when he moved off the bed, just before he disappeared, he looked sad. Devils never looked sad. They always looked happy when people were hurt or sinning, or angry when people did good, but they never looked sad. So maybe he wasn't really a devil after all?

She started to sit up, but her head spun too much. She could feel the blood trickle down her face. She laid back down on the bed. With the "devil" gone, it was very quiet inside this place. It looked like the inside of a big car, or maybe even an airplane. It was all steel and plastic, and the light was sort of dim, as if they'd parked in the shade. There didn't seem to be a door anywhere, so she couldn't leave even if she could stand up. She laid in the bed, waiting.

The "devil" returned in a minute or so, just like he said he would, and this time he was not alone. The lady that Rosa had seen, the one with all the lightning dancing around her; she was with him. An angel and a devil together? The woman held onto him with both arms, and he was holding onto her with his long tail. He looked very worried about her.

The lady looked back at her as the strange man set her onto the floor. She looked a little startled, but she didn't look afraid. In fact, she almost looked… like she felt sorry for her. Rosa didn't understand English, but the lady's words were so soft. They were spoken in a gentle voice, like her mother once used with her. Neither one of these people were afraid of her, and it looked like they were tying to save her from the robot. What kind of people were they? She was so ugly. Didn't they care about that?

Ororo laid on the floor as Kurt reluctantly teleported away, her body involuntarily trembling with shock and cold. She looked up at the frightened, wounded, hideous little creature on the bed and her heart ached with pity. Yes, she did look the part of a "chupacabra," didn't she? How often had she been chased away? Shot at? Attacked with stones? She kept pressure on her wound with one hand and raised the other to the little mutant.

"Do you speak English?" she asked.

Her voice was shaking as bad as her body. That was no good. She had to project confidence and strength. This girl needed a lifeline, not a sinking anchor.

The girl didn't answer. From the looks of her lip-less mouth and needle-like teeth, it may not be possible for her to talk right now. But she slowly reached down with one scaly hand. Ororo took it and grasped it firmly.

"It's all right," Ororo told her. "You're safe here. No one can hurt you here."

Her words likely meant nothing, but at least the tone should reassure her. After a few moments, the girl slowly crawled off of the bed and next to Ororo, where she curled up by her side. Ororo hugged her close, occasionally stroking her bristling shoulder and arm. Soon the bristles felt like they were growing shorter.

The girl looked up at Ororo as the last of the scales and bristles retreated. Ororo looked down at the her and watched as the creature was replaced by a malnourished, unkempt, naked little girl. Still, she was not quite "normal" looking. At first Ororo thought an injury had torn a large chunk out of the girl's lip, but soon she realized that it was a deformality. This child had so much more to feel self-conscious about than her secondary, mutant form.

_Cleft lip, bilateral_, she could hear Jean's clinical voice recite. _Half the time they have a cleft palate, too._

Ororo stroked the girl's face, running a gloved finger alongside of her harelip, and pulled her close again. The girl tucked her bleeding head into Ororo's shoulder and clung to her, eyes glazed over. No tears, no speech, no movement; just the silence and clinging of a girl in deep shock.

TBC…


	4. The New and Improved Model

**Isolation, part 4**

After Kurt teleported out, Logan moved back to the fallen amplifier suit for a closer look. He sliced open the cockpit and kicked the top away. The piece flew much further than he had expected, considering how heavy that same bit had been on the first two suits they encountered. His lip turned up in disgust as he examined the cockpit. It looked like Kurt had set off a bomb in there. And in the center of that gory detonation, a shaft of rebar stuck out.

Sc_ott's gonna have a field day figuring out the physics for this_, he thought. _Some kind of matter displacement thing. Whatever Kurt did, it was pretty damn effective. I just hope he gets the use of his arms back._

He bent down and tried to pick up the head, which he remembered to be the lightest single part of the ensemble. To his shock, he overcompensated and almost fell flat on his back, the piece was so light. What the hell was this thing made out of? Balsa wood and tin foil? He looked up into the head, expecting a mass of wire. Instead, he saw fiber optics. He sniffed it. No, there wasn't a single whiff of metal. He quickly checked the rest of the limbs. All shared the same lightweight plastic and ceramic structure. This whole unit, including the pilot, couldn't weigh more than 600 lbs.

A quiet explosion behind him meant Kurt had returned. Logan turned around, holding onto the suit's head and right arm. Kurt looked dubious.

"I don't know if I'm strong enough for all that," he warned.

"Bet you are," Logan quipped.

He tossed the head to Kurt, who managed to catch it with his tail. Kurt's jaw went slack when he realized how light the part really was.

"Looks like they're trying out a whole new model," Logan went on. "Torso's fubar, but the limbs are intact. I say we bring back all we can. Scott an' Hank are gonna want to see this."

Kurt make the mistake of looking behind Logan to where both cockpit and pilot laid open and exposed, skewered on a piece of rebar, chest exploded outwards--.... Kurt closed his eyes and turned away, his stomach churning. Lord help him, what had he done?

**: **

Ororo's vision was tunneling. The edges grew hazy and indistinct, then faded entirely. She couldn't feel the warmth from the little one beside her. Her whole body was going numb. At some point, Kurt and Logan must have returned, because both she and the girl were lifted up, placed on the bed, wrapped in several blankets, and the bed tilted up at the feet to keep the blood from pooling in their extremities.

She blinked, trying to clear her vision, as Logan strapped her and the girl down. "Who's… flying the plane?"

Logan glanced back at the cockpit. "Both of us, I guess. Kurt's done better on the simulator than I have, but it'll be hell for him to do this with just his tail…."

His words faded and blended together. She had no idea what he was saying for the last half of the statement. She shook her head, forcing herself to stay focused. There was a team that needed her alive. There was a girl that was relying on her. There was a man she loved dearly. She couldn't black out. She just couldn't. But as the world dimmed further around her, she realized that she no longer had a choice….

"Hey! Stay with me, Storm!" Logan called, shaking her shoulder.

Kurt shook his head as he watched. "She's in shock. She needs a hospital."

"Great. You know where the closest one is? Maybe there's a triple-A map in the glove compartment."

Kurt's gaze rested on the little girl curled up next to Ororo. "Maybe she does." He switched to Castilian. "Little one. We need you to help."

She did not answer. She kept looking straight ahead, but not at them.

"Logan, can you get her attention, please?" Kurt requested. "If I touch her with my tail, it may startle her too much."

Logan gently pulled some of the blanket away from the girl's head and tapped her shoulder. She blinked and looked up at him for the first time.

"Little one, we need you to help," Kurt repeated softly.

She looked at Kurt and tensed. She swallowed nervously, biting her bottom lip to form a seal that her cleft upper lip otherwise denied.

"What be your name?" Kurt asked her.

"Rosa," she whispered.

"Rosa, do you know a hospital close here? You need a doctor and she need a doctor."

Kurt nodded to Ororo as he spoke. Rosa looked up at Ororo's face.

"Is she hurt bad?"

Kurt forced his voice to remain calm. "Yes. She needs a hospital. It be important."

She paused, obviously thinking. When she spoke, her words were formed with difficulty, due to her mangled lip. "I don't know any hospitals. They take too much money. We go to a curandera. She lets us pay in chickens and corn when we have any."

Kurt blinked. "What be a curandera? I do not know that word."

"She's a healer. She uses God's power to heal people. She couldn't heal my lip, but she once healed a broken leg. I saw her do it. The man could walk after seeing her."

Kurt sighed and closed his eyes. "She only knows of a faith healer," he said in English.

"Yeah, well, lots of times the locals will surprise you," Logan said. "Maybe that faith healer has a phone book. So far, it's our best option. I don't want to try and land this baby in Mexico City if I don't gotta."

_And Ororo might not last long enough to get there_, Kurt added silently. In Castilian, he spoke aloud, "Where be this woman of God, Rosa? How far away be she?"

Rosa looked down at the nice woman, then up at the strange "not-demon" and the fierce-looking man, none of whom cared what she looked like. They didn't stare at her lip, they didn't call her cursed, and they saved her from the robot. The nice woman had even gotten hurt helping Rosa. She owed them.

"I… I don't know how many miles it is, but I can show you how to get there," she said.

She started to get up, then the belt stopped her. Logan unhooked the belt and she started to sit up again, and then her side started hurting. Something was always getting in the way of her getting up. She winced, then forced herself upright, biting her lip all the way. Kurt politely averted his gaze. Logan moved away quickly.

"Gimme a sec," he mumbled.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kurt could tell that Rosa was moving out from under the blanket. He could hear the fabric sliding, hear the bed creaking just a little as she jerkily pushed herself up. He cautiously raised his tail and extended it a few inches over the bed.

"Do you need help to sit?" he asked. "My arms be not moving now, but my tail does move."

"I'm not supposed to pull tails," Rosa answered meekly.

Logan came back with a clean, spare, T-shirt. On Rosa's tiny frame, the shirt would be more like a shift. Rosa looked back at him as he held up the soft cotton garment.

"Oh, to Hell with it," Logan muttered.

He bent over and picked Rosa up off of the bed, then gently set her on the floor and helped her put her arms through those of the shirt. The white fabric looked glaringly pale against her, and it covered all the way down to her knees.

"She's decent, Kurt. You can look, now."

Kurt turned to them both. Logan crouched on the steel floor of the Blackbird while Rosa leaned on him for support, one hand on his shoulder and her other arm across her stomach. Her body language screamed that she was about ready to faint, that she was sick, wounded, weak. Her eyes alone showed whatever strength was keeping her upright.

"I'll take you to the curandera, now," she stated. "I'll stand up and watch through the windshield and tell you which way to go."

That meant she would have to sit on someone's shoulders; the windows were far too high for her to see through otherwise. Ordinarily, it would be Logan's job to lift the girl, and Kurt's to fly the unwieldy beast. These were hardly "ordinary" circumstances. Once again, Kurt willed his arms to move. Once again, he failed. It was as if they had been replaced with wooden planks.

_Make do with whatever you have at hand_, he thought. _Even if you have no hands at all._

He walked toward the main pilot's seat. Logan picked the girl up and cradled her in his arms as he made his way back with him.

"Wait a minute, you're not doing what I think you're doing," Logan said. When Kurt silently sat in the pilot's seat, Logan continued, "Are you out of your mind? How the hell are you gonna fly this thing without arms? You've only got one tail, bub."

Kurt started flipping switches with the tip of his flexible tail. "Remember in the simulator I said I could beat you with both hands tied behind my back?"

"Look, your scores were good, but they weren't _that_ good! You can't fly with just your tail! You need two hands for that!"

Kurt adjusted his perch in the seat, clamping his toes around the molded plastic, as the jets roared to life. As his tail wrapped around the thruster controls for a firm grip, he reached out with one foot and grabbed the yoke. Logan and Rosa stared with equal expressions of disbelief.

"Jesus, Kurt, only Cyc's supposed to be this macho," Logan muttered. "Just let me fly the fucking plane, already."

Kurt turned his head Logan's way. "I flew this way in the simulator, just to see if I could. Even this way, I'm still a better pilot than you. I will get us there much faster."

The jet began to tremble, the thrusters kicking up a spray of dirt and sending vibrations through the floorboards. If it was one thing Logan had learned about Kurt over the past eight months, it was that he was ninety-five percent pushover and five percent stubborn mule. Right now, he was staring into a whole lot of five percent. Logan settled into the copilot's seat, sitting Rosa on his shoulders for a good view and surreptitiously placing one hand within easy reach of the controls. Rosa leaned on Logan's head for support as the jet slowly raised away from the packed ground.

"Which way, Rosa?" Kurt asked.

"Left some," she said. As Kurt swung the plane around, she suddenly called out, "Stop! Go forward."

They were heading into the interior, farther away from what little civilization the maps knew. Kurt had to fly much lower than he was used to in order to give Rosa a view she could still recognize. They must be eating through their fuel at a much higher rate than usual. They could be seen and heard by anyone on the ground. All these things swirled through Kurt's head, but it was the image of Ororo, motionless and wrapped in a blanket, that took center stage.

**: **

Matt and Angelou waited silently, watching the monitors, waiting for a sign. Unit six had gone down twenty minutes ago, the retrieval team had gone out fifteen minutes ago, and still nothing.

"Man, why's it taking so fuckin' long?" Angelou complained. "Aren't they supposed to get there really fast?"

"What, you mean the teleport thing?" Matt asked back.

"Yeah, that thing. I saw it work once."

"I saw it _not_ work once. That thing's not safe. They're probably hiking in."

"You saw it fuck up? What happened?"

Matt shivered. "I don't wanna talk about it. It was bad. That's all I'm gonna say."

It wouldn't have been so hard for the two of them to wait if they hadn't seen Unit six's live feed. Or if they hadn't heard the constant beeping from their mutant detector, and seen the targets pulled up on the screen. Or, to top it off, if the retrieval team hadn't reported hearing and seeing Xavier's jet flying low.

Unit six had encountered the Oval Office Assassin, Weapon X, and another one of Xavier's inhuman brood code-named Storm. At first, it went well. Unit six incapacitated Logan, and while Storm was playing around, it went into the mining shaft after its original target. The ensuing battle was even better, as no one could penetrate its forcefield. Everything was going exactly as Larry predicted. Storm went down, and Weapon X was in its grasp. Then Unit six's feedback readings spiked and flatlined in short order, the live feed quit, and nobody could figure out what went wrong. One this was for certain, though. The Assassin used his powers several times after Unit six's demise. At least one of the mutants was still alive.

Finally the speaker squawked to life. "Roving base three, this is hound party one."

Matt grabbed the radio's call set. "Hound one, this is base three. Find anything?"

"You want the good news or the bad news?"

Matt paused. "What do you have more of?"

"We found part of Unit 6, specifically the cockpit. It's got a rod shoved clean through it. Went through the forcefield and ceramic like a hot knife through butter."

"I didn't think even Adamantium could do that."

"That's the weird part; it's just plain old rebar. Larry's gonna have a field day figuring out the physics for this. The bad news is that that's the _only_ thing we found. The arms, legs, and head are all gone. They've been sliced off. And that means they've been taken for study."

Matt bowed his head and rested the call box on his scalp. Shit. They were so screwed. The one thing Larry did NOT want to have happen, and it happened right under their noses.

He lowered the box to his lips. "Guess the recall button didn't work, huh?"

"Kind of hard to teleport with the cockpit this shredded. I don't think Larry ever expected disruption on this scale."

"Can you track the limbs at all?"

"We're not getting a damned thing. I bet they're on the Goddamn jet."

"Yeah, that'd explain it. The jet's supposed to be loaded with more ECMs than we are."

"Considering it didn't exist on any of our instruments, I'd say they were right. It was going inland. Going that low, I wonder if they were looking for something ground based."

Matt raised his head slowly. "Or they were making a short hop. Maybe they were gonna land somewhere close."

"Why?"

"Hell, I don't know! Maybe they got a flat!"

They didn't dare go back without the amp suit, let alone without even a mutant hide to show for it. They had to find something; the rest of the parts, or their target. They couldn't just pack up and leave empty-handed after losing billions in hardware. But if Xavier's freaks were flying their jet that low, it meant something was up. Maybe they'd land within 100 miles. Maybe one of them would activate his power again….

Matt clicked on the handset. "All right, put a recall thingy on the cockpit and send it back. From what you're telling me this thing couldn't get more fucked up by a bad 'port. Then just hang out for a while. Lou and I will keep scanning from here We'll tell you when we find something."

"Fine by us, base. I don't wanna see Larry blow his stack any time soon. Hound one out and monitoring."

"Base three out and monitoring."

He lowered the box again, lost in thought. Trailing Xavier's battle-trained freaks was dangerous business. _Very_ dangerous business. But if his team brought them down, even one of them… if he could bring back proof that Storm was dead, let alone Weapon X…. He looked over at Angelou, who was surely thinking the same thing.

"Man, if we pull this off, there's gonna be bonuses like you wouldn't fuckin' believe," Angelou said, his eyes glistening.

"I'm just glad it's not us out there risking our asses," Matt grunted as he stood up. "You wanna drive or let me?"

TBC…


	5. The Curandera

**Isolation, part 5**

Rosa was shivering badly by the time the curandera's little house appeared on the horizon. It wasn't from shock or pain; it was from fear. Logan carefully pulled her off his shoulders and sat her down on his lap, where she leaned against his chest. Kurt glanced her direction as well.

"We be almost there, Rosa," Kurt told her.

"I can't go in there," she whimpered.

"Rosa, you be hurting. You must go in."

Rosa shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. "I can't go in. What if I get ugly again? She'll kill me."

Kurt turned his attention to landing the Blackbird. How could he tell this girl to go in? How could he assure her everything would be all right? So often it wasn't. He'd lost track of how many "good Christians" had turned weapons on him at first sight. How many doctors turned him away, or suggested he see a veterinarian instead. He couldn't lie to this girl… but he couldn't let her fear keep her from the only help they had.

"She afraid to go in there?" Logan asked as they touched down.

Kurt nodded. "She thinks if she 'turns ugly' the healer will try to kill her."

Logan let go a long, steady breath. "Can't say as I blame her. Does this healer lady speak English?"

"Let me ask." In Castilian, "Rosa, does the curandera speak English?"

"A little bit," she whispered. "Not too much."

"It sounds like she knows a few words," Kurt told Logan.

Logan stood up with Rosa in his arms. "Okay, here's the drill. I'll go in with 'Ro first. Then I come back for Rose. If anything happens, I'll protect her. No one's gonna hurt her while I'm around."

Kurt looked out the cockpit, at the little house a few hundred feet distant. A wizened, stooped woman was at the doorway. Well, at least they knew she wasn't deaf….

"And if everything checks out in there, I want you in, too," Logan said, poking Kurt in the shoulder. "Unless those arms come to life in the next few minutes."

Kurt tried. Though he still had no feeling, he was able to move his shoulders and elbows. He flexed, then shook his arms out.

"They seem to be waking up," he said. "And the ladies need attention more than I."

Logan set Rosa on Kurt's lap. "Good. One of us needs to stay with the plane, anyway."

As Kurt lowered the ramp, Logan bolted to Ororo's side and unhooked all the buckles in short order. He lifted her, blankets and all. She never stirred, nor opened her eyes. Her face was cooler than Logan liked, her pulse thready. He ran down the ramp and headed for the little adobe home.

The woman standing at the doorway could have been any age between 60 and 600. Her light brown face was lined with deep wrinkles, the consequences of harsh work and harsher sun. She wore the traditional native dress of the region, a brightly-colored skirt and blouse of homespun fabric. She stared at the jet, wide eyed, only looking at Logan as he drew within a few yards of her place.

She crossed herself frantically, whispering, "Madre de Dios…."

"She needs help, bad," Logan said as he jogged to a halt in front of the woman.

The curandera looked at Ororo, and nodded. "Si, si, inside. Come."

Kurt watched from his seat as Logan carried Ororo inside the house, followed closely by the curandera. He held Rosa loosely in his arms, staring out past her.

"They be inside now," Kurt said. "The curandera has them now."

Rosa nodded, sniffing. She was trying so hard not to cry, but she wasn't succeeding. As with Logan, she curled up against Kurt's chest, staring blankly into space. Kurt stroked the back of her head with his tail. She had been so strong up until now. There had to be something he could do to comfort her. There had to be something. He rocked back and forth, tucking his tail between his leaden arms and her back to gauge how tightly he hugged her. Softly, he began to sing.

Tunjariko e rjat, angar kalo,   
Nekezhi' ma, marel o jilo;   
Trajin el Rrom sar nisave   
Rrevdin e dukh, sa bokhale.

Dzum dzum dzum   
Sar macharki pash-dural hurjas,   
Dzum dzum dzum   
Amare levuci rromane bashas.

He drew in a startled breath as he saw Logan's reflection in the glass, then spun around. How did he get back into the jet without being heard?

"You've got a halfway decent singing voice, elf," Logan said. "Is that German?"

"No. Romani." Kurt stood up, still holding Rosa in his arms.

"What's it about?"

Kurt looked down at Rosa and stroked her hair with his tail once more. "It isn't the… brightest song. It was written during the holocaust."

He handed her over to Logan. She wasn't limp, but she didn't react, either. She just laid in the arms of whoever had her, quiet and passive.

"I'll call Herr Professor," he said softly. "He needs to know what's happening."

"Yeah. You do that."

Logan went down the ramp again, then ran to the curandera's house.

Like so many of the adobe structures they saw in the other town, the curandera's lonely house had no glass for the windows. Nor did it have electricity, running water, or (to Logan's chagrin) a telephone. But unlike the rest of the homes, this house had a tile roof and smooth, even walls. The fireplace inside had a rounded, organic appearance rather than the usual square mantels of American homes, and the curves were perfectly shaped. A professional had made this house, or at least an artist had come in and added to it. The furnishings were simple; colorful, striped blankets hung from the walls, and a shrine to the Holy Virgin took up one corner.

The old woman was where Logan had left her; in her own room, kneeling at the side of the bed where Ororo lay. She chanted in Spanish and shook a feathered rattle that seemed to be made out of the dried ball and stem of some giant kelp. Some of the words were obvious, even to Logan: Madre de Dios and Jesús weren't hard to figure out. Logan stood nearby as he waited, watching over the curandera's shoulder from a discrete distance.

The woman reached out with her free hand and picked up a pinch of something from a nearby wide-lipped bowl. She sprinkled it into Ororo's wound, then placed her hand over it. She never stopped chanting, never stopped shaking her rattle.

_What the hell are we doing here? _Logan thought._ We're sitting in the middle of bum-fuck-Mexico, watching some lady chant and shake a rattle. 'Ro aughta be in a hospital…._

His sensitive nose caught a shift in the old woman's scent. Some kind of chemical change. He drew near, standing next to her, now, and watched her closely. There was a slight waver in the air, like a heat shimmer, around her hand; such a slight effect that it was invisible to all but the closest observation. Color slowly faded back into Ororo's face, and her eyebrows momentarily knitted.

And then Logan caught a different scent, right up against him. He looked down at Rosa. Bristles were starting to poke out of her skin.

**:**

"Got her!" Angelou cried triumphantly, turning to Matt. "Bitch's active twenty miles east!"

Matt quickly spoke into dashboard radio. "Can you guys pick up the signal?"

There was a pause as hound party one checked their instruments on the other end of the line.

"Yeah, she's up," the speaker shouted above the sounds of the engine. His voice betrayed the constant, jarring movement of their all-terrain vehicle. "She's stationary, right?"

"That's an affirm. Gimme an ETA, guys."

"We're looking at about half hour, maybe more."

Matt looked back to Angelou and gave a silent thumbs up. As he turned, he saw another light on the control panel. He pointed behind Lou.

"Lou, check that out, will you?"

"Huh? Check what out?"

"The indicator light? Behind you?"

Angelou finally looked back to where Matt was impatiently pointing and figured out what he was talking about.

"How come this one isn't making any noise?" Angelou muttered.

"It isn't strong enough. You have to have something above threshold for it to make a noise. Otherwise we'd be homing in on little stuff like midgets all the time." Angelou laughed, and Matt fumed, "That wasn't meant to be funny. I slipped, okay?"

"Matt, you're not gonna believe this."

"What?"

"Out new mutie is in the same place as the girl."

Matt grinned. "Great. Two for one."

**:**

Logan backed out of the room as Rosa started to shake. Dammit, this girl had lousy timing. She must not have any control over her power yet. The bristles lengthened under the T-shirt, not poking through but sticking up underneath. In seconds, she was the same hideous little creature they had found in the tunnels. He sat with Rosa for several minutes, listening to the chanting next door. Here he was, comforting a scared girl again. If this kept up, his reputation would never recover.

_I hope this lady wasn't just blowing smoke when she said to bring Rose in_, Logan thought, looking back into the bedroom. _Otherwise, we've got a problem._

During the chanting, he heard a deep sigh. There was no way the healer could do both at the same time. That had to be Ororo. He peeked around the corner to see Ororo shifting slightly, a frown on her face. She was just shy of coming around. The curandera lowered her rattle and finished her prayers, and leaned over her patient. Logan leaned back against the wall again and patted Rosa with one hand.

"You did good, kid," he said quietly. "You did real good."

The curandera slowly stood up, leaning on the bed for support. She kissed Ororo on the forehead and made the sign of the cross over her before straightening up completely. Or, at least, straightening up as much as possible. Osteoporosis seemed to have robbed her of her posture some time ago.

She slowly walked out of the bedroom, exhaustion etched into every line in her craggy face. "She live, senior. She live now. She need sleep--"

The old woman turned to Logan as she spoke, and got her first real look at Rosa's "secondary form". She gasped and backed against the doorway, covering her mouth in shock.

"You bring chupacabras?" she cried.

"No, no, remember what I said?" Logan interrupted as he stood up. "This is Rose inside. It's her. She looks different, but she's really a little girl."

"Is Rosa?" she asked meekly, peering at the girl. "Rosa and bad lip?"

So she knew the girl already? That could be good or bad…. "Yeah, that's her. Sometimes she looks like this, and sometimes she doesn't. Right now she's hurt, all right?"

The healer tentatively reached out to Rosa and touched her leg. Her eyes widened in further shock, and she began talking rapidly in Spanish. Rosa turned to her, and the woman stepped forward and cupped Rosa's face in her hands, her words rapid, her tone and expression one of concern.

"Senior, please come here," she said to Logan, gesturing to an old couch covered with an afghan. "Sit Rosa here."

Logan did. The curandera went to a cabinet and pulled a few bottles before joining him. She kept speaking Spanish, her tone now someplace between chiding and loving.

" 'Crawler, you listenin' in on this?" Logan asked softly.

After a pause, Kurt's voice answered through the earpiece. "I am now."

"Any idea what she's sayin'?"

"She's speaking so fast…. There is something about how she helped bring Rosa into the world, how she will help make her better, why didn't her parents bring her sooner… I can't get the rest."

"You called up Charley yet?"

"….No…."

That was unusual. Kurt was second only to Scott in his adherence to protocol. "Okay. Not that I care, but why not? You said you were gonna."

There was a pause, and Logan could hear Kurt take a deep breath. "Because if Storm doesn't make it, I don't want them to feel helpless between my calling and her… going."

Logan looked into the curandera's room. Ororo was curling up on her good side, away from the midday light from the open doorway and window.

"You don't need to worry about that, partner," Logan said. " 'Ro's out of shock."

"She is?" Kurt asked, breathless.

"She's sleeping now. The kid wasn't kidding when she said this lady was a healer."

Back in the Blackbird, Kurt barely registered Logan's words. The fact that Ororo was alive was more important than anything else the man had to say. He just sat there in the pilot's seat, head leaning on the yoke, silently thanking God over and over and over. He only raised his head when Logan called his name again.

"You still there, buddy?"

"Y-yes," he said, startled. "I… I need to call Herr Professor now. Excuse me."

Though he could move his wrists now, his fingers were still numb. He turned the main communications array on with a few taps of his tail. Immediately, a warning light came on. The systems had picked up a broadcast trying to penetrate the Blackbird's ECMs. Kurt hadn't shut off the communications array fifteen minutes ago: whatever it was must have started broadcasting during that time. He quickly scanned for the origination point or points. Nine points, all literally inside the jet. Kurt looked back at the suit's remnants: if there were two transmitters in each limb, and one in the head….

"Logan, we have a problem. There are transmitters in those suit arms and legs, and they're trying to call to their owners."

"Shit, don't tell me we've been tracked to here?" Logan spat in reply.

"The signals haven't been able to get through the countermeasures, but it means that someone is probably searching for us. Hold on…."

Kurt scanned the active frequencies in the area. Short-wave radio, commercial jets, satellite broadcasts… he cut through the common chatter to isolate the more unusual broadcasts. He found two points of activity close by. One of them broadcast a signal that looked like the activator for the suit's transmitters. The other seemed to be a hive of sensor activity. Both points had an open comlink between them, both were on the move, going at least forty miles an hour, and both were homing in on their location. The one with lower sensor activity was almost on top of them.

To be concluded…


	6. One Last Chance

**Editor's Note:** Bluefooted did an illustration for this story, too. :) As with the previous ones, just remove the spaces for the proper URL. http:www. angelfire. com/ art2/ bluefooted/ images/ isolation2.jpg 

****

**Isolation, part 6**

Logan waited, tense and edgy in the silence as Kurt did his checks. Well, not really silent. The old lady was talking a mile a minute, scolding one second and soothing the next. She wiped her eyes once, sniffed a few times as she rubbed a strong, sweet-smelling oil all over Rosa's scales. When she was done with that, she started chanting again. More religious stuff. Logan was quietly thankful that the elf did all his praying and chanting in private: this could really get on a guy's nerves after a while.

"Logan, they found us!" Kurt shouted. "Two vehicles closing in! One less than a mile away!"

Shit! That meant they were in firing range! How the hell did they get so close without being picked up? Logan suddenly grabbed both Rosa and the old woman and bore them to the floor, laying on top of them. The woman shrieked in surprise, but Logan quickly silenced her, putting a hand over her mouth.

"Men with guns outside," he whispered. "Stay down--"

Automatic weapons fire sprayed the walls of the little house. Chunks of adobe exploded away as the shells ripped through everything in their path. Stuffing bled from the couch. The bullets flew by bare inches over Logan's head. He looked back at the curandera's private room, where Ororo lay. The deafening gunfire had shocked her awake. She had rolled out of bed onto the floor automatically, her fingers trembling with the sudden surge of adrenaline and confused awareness as she looked back to Logan.

After a few seconds of destruction, the shooting abruptly stopped. That meant one of two things: the enemy was about to enter, or Kurt had gotten to them. Logan shot out of the open doorway, claws snapping into place, and made a quick, knee breaking turn in the direction of the shots. His target was easy enough to find. A vehicle that looked like an armored dune buggy, six men in combat fatigues, and a blue blur of activity.

Nightcrawler was not having an easy time of it. He still hadn't fully recovered from that stunt in the mine, and now he was up against a coordinated unit of armed and armored men. They broke into partners, spread out, and kept out of each other's line of fire. A hail of bullets clipped Nightcrawler on the shoulder from behind. They didn't penetrate the armored uniform, but they still hurt like hell, and they spun him off balance. He teleported as he fell, materializing behind the vehicle to get his bearings. He couldn't give them a clear shot: they would blow his head off if given half a chance. He felt warmth on his upper lip, tasted the bitter tang of iron in his mouth, and the world jerked to the side. Nosebleed. He was pushing himself too hard. But he couldn't stop. He had to distract them long enough for Logan to get there. He tumbled away as more bullets tracked his movement on the ground, and his head went uncomfortably light. _No, no, don't pass out. You're a dead man if you pass out…._ He teleported again and materialized literally on top of an enemy. He slammed him to the ground and buried his elbow in his neck, simultaneously foot-sweeping his partner.

He teleported away again, and found himself badly off-balance as he materialized. He stumbled for a half second, vision tunneling, and in that time more bullets sprayed his torso. He fell back, gasping for breath, and heard a soft, sickening sound. The sound of several blades piercing flesh and scraping on bone.

Against Nightcrawler, they did well. It was as if they were expecting him, as if they had planned their strategy around him. But once Logan came into the fray, it didn't last long. They shot him: he didn't care. They ran: he picked up a rifle and mowed them down.

When it was all over, he looked back at Kurt with a bit of distaste, an assault rifle in his hands. "Next time, elf, just pick up a rifle and start shooting."

Kurt smiled weakly. "And how would I pull the trigger, my friend? With my tail?"

"Jeez, your hands ain't working _yet_?"

Kurt's vision was returning to normal, and the world didn't spin so wildly anymore. He sat up and wiped his bloody lip with the back of his hand. "Only my wrists. My fingers are still like lead."

"Prone to nosebleeds, aren't you?"

He pinched his nose with the flexible tip of his tail. "When I teleport too much, yes, I bleed so."

"Where's the other vehicle?"

Kurt stared at Logan blankly for a heartbeat. "What are you --?"

"You said there were two vehicles, Kurt," Logan interrupted. "Where'd you pick up the other one?"

Kurt's eyes widened as he suddenly remembered the second signal. He looked back over his shoulder, in the last direction he knew the second vehicle to be. According to the Blackbird's terrain maps, it was flat land that way, and the road was bare of other vehicles. Their target _should_ still be inside his range, but in his condition….

Kurt stood up, still pinching his nose, and offered his motionless hand. "This is going to hurt…."

**:**

Matt had never driven so fast in his life. They almost had X108. The almost had him. His power signs had grown weaker and weaker with every activation. The hounds were doing a great job. Then it all went to hell. In a few seconds, all transmissions ceased. Every life sign monitor on every hound went dead. And "dead" is what he and Angelou were going to be if they didn't get the hell out of here, but on this rough road there was only so fast they could go.

_Got to get to the main rig, _he thought._ Got to get there. Got to get out of this God-forsaken shithole. The hounds'll take the fall for this. Me and Lou are clean. We'll be okay if we can just get to the main rig._

"Matt, we got a power blip!" Angelou shouted from in back. "I think it's the blue freak! It's almost on top of us!"

Matt's heart pounded. He took a split second to glance back at Angelou, before returning his attention to the bumpy, but clear, road. From out of nowhere, someone in black sprang out in front of the truck. Matt was going too fast. There was no way to avoid hitting him. Then the guy jumped up, and the last thing Matt saw was the blades that shot out of the man's fists.

Logan crashed into the windshield claws-first. The driver never had a chance. The truck swerved wildly and slammed onto its side, skidding to a halt on the dirt road. Logan clambered through the access hole between the cab and the rear. There was someone else back there. With any luck, this meant they'd have a prisoner this time.

The back of the truck, which looked like a basic camper shell on the outside, was filled with sensor arrays and other high-tech equipment. The man in back was some kind of skinhead neo-nazi. Something about the shaved head and swastika tattoos made that abundantly clear. Logan sheathed his claws as he crawled back, a warning grin on his face.

"Okay, bub, it's just you and me," he said. "You wanna play the hero like everyone else, or you wanna live?"

The guy backed up in the far corner, blood trickling from a minor scalp wound he must've received from the turnover. He was trying to stand up, bracing himself against some equipment and trying not to step on others. Too late Logan noticed the surreptitious movement of his target's fingers over a single red pushbutton.

The back of the tiny chamber glowed with red light, the same disturbing bloody color Logan saw in the teleport wormhole at the switching station last month. The skinhead screamed. Everything warped. Metal buckled. Plastic melted. Glass shattered. Electricity arced.

And then rear section of the vehicle was gone, and Logan was looking out at a sunny afternoon. Sparks sporadically leapt up from equipment that was only half-gone. Some of the skinhead was left behind too, identifiable only as bloody, partially charred lumps of muscle and bone. So much for their prisoner. He looked around at the remains of the sensor array. Not that he'd know what to do with this stuff, but it all looked pretty fried to him. And there was no real way to take any of it home with them….

Then he saw the computer box, laying on its side as far away from the rear of the truck as possible. No scorch marks on the casing, just a few dents. It _might_ have survived. It _might_ have something of value. He bent down and began disengaging the unit from the rest of the junk. It was the best chance they had of making sense of any of this.

**:**

Ororo woke to shooting. She rolled onto the floor instinctively, in the hopes of ducking the bullets. The shooting stopped and Logan bolted, then the shooting started again, but nothing came through the walls. Their little girl, in her secondary form, laid shivering on the floor of the front room, along with an old woman. Were they at one of her relatives' homes? How much time had passed? What was going on?

She heard Kurt and Logan talking over the comlink, but she couldn't concentrate enough to understand them, much less muster up the strength to speak herself. She waited there long after the bullets stopped. After a few minutes, she shakily sat up.

"Gentlemen, what's going on?" she asked.

"Good to hear you're up, 'Ro," Logan's voice answered. "Give us a few more seconds. Kurt's just recovering enough for one last 'port." He paused for a split second, then asked, "You sure this isn't hurting the hard drive?"

Kurt's voice sounded like he was speaking between pants, though the mike "edited out" the intakes of breath. "It never did before. It's good to hear your voice, liebling."

"You're not pushing yourself too hard, are you, Kurt?" she asked.

"Do I have to tell you… how hypocritical that sounds? Especially if you're out of bed?"

"I rolled out to avoid being shot, thank you."

"Is the doorway clear, by any chance?"

She glanced through the living room to the front door. "The door's open outwards, but other than that, it's clear."

"Good. Hold on."

The two men materialized in a blue sulfurous cloud just outside the door. By this point, Kurt's chest was spattered with shining red, and there were several bullet "marks" on his uniform from where he'd been shot, but the shells did not completely penetrate. He immediately dropped into a low crouch, bowing his head, and a scarlet drop fell onto the ground before him. He pinched his nose shut with the entire spade of his tail, trying to stem the steady dribble of blood.

"Verdabt dose," he muttered.

Logan looked from Kurt to Ororo as he hefted a computer tower in both hands. "You two okay for a minute? I wanna put this baby on the 'bird where it'll be safe. I'll get the first aid kit."

"Ad sub Gatorade," Kurt asked. "I tig I'll deed it."

Kurt raised his head just enough to see Ororo, and instead found himself looking straight at the creature who was little Rosa. She had crawled over to him across the tile floor. She knelt in front of him and reached for his hands, then gently pulled. She wanted him inside.

When Logan jogged back, a six-pack of Gatorade in hand and a first aid kit in the other, he found Kurt sitting on the floor in front of the curandera. She was pinching his nose with one hand and shaking her rattle with the other. Rosa laid curled up nearby, and Ororo sat against the doorway to the next room, out of everyone's way. The skin that showed through the hole in her uniform was pink and glistening, very fresh and raw. Logan made his way to Ororo first, popping off a plastic bottle of electrolytes and handing it to her. She accepted it gratefully.

After a few gulps of the sweetish, neon yellow liquid, she said, "Is this one of our girl's relatives?"

"Don't think so," Logan answered. "We were lookin' for someplace to get you taken care of, but the only one our girl here knew of was a faith healer. Good thing for us she's the real thing. I think she's a mutant, too."

"We're at a curandera's place?"

Logan paused. "Yeah, she and Kurt said that word a few times."

Ororo sipped her drink and nodded. "Traditional folk healers of Mexico. Combination of prayer and herbalism." She looked down at her side, specifically at the healing wound. "She did this?"

"Like I said, I think she's a mutant."

The curandera finished her chant and removed her hand. When she spoke, her voice was tremulous with exhaustion.

"I sorry, senor, I so tired. No more blood, but maybe start again."

Kurt nodded just a little bit, responding in Castilian. Ororo could gather he was thanking her, but there was more to it than that. He and the curandera spoke for a little bit, and she traced one of the delicate scars on his face, prompting his embarrassed smile.

"You flirtin' over there, partner?" Logan called. "Doncha think she's a little old for you?"

"She said she knew I wasn't a demon," Kurt answered. "No demon could wear the angels' marks on its skin."

The curandera nodded and pointed to Kurt's face. "Angel here. Is no diablo."

Logan moved over to Kurt and handed him the rest of the six-pack. Kurt removed two bottles and set them aside for Rosa before tearing into to the remainder.

"Y'know the worst part about all this?" Logan asked, surveying everyone in the room. "Now _I'm_ the one who has to call up Charley."

**:**

They stayed at the curandera's that night, for the healer insisted on it. Kurt was in no shape to fly the Blackbird just then, and Ororo would take even longer to recover fully. While Rosa slept, apparently trapped in her secondary form for the time being, the X-men managed to explain some of what was going on. Where they came from, who and what they where, what they were trying to do. The curandera did not seem to understand all of it, but she also seemed not to care. All that mattered to her was that they planned to take Rosa to a safe school in America, and it was the best thing she could ever have hoped for.

Logan disappeared for an hour after dinner, but came back before the sun went down, laden with several bags of gear and four heavy assault rifles. No one bothered to ask him where he had been.

The next morning, as they were prepping the Blackbird for takeoff, Rosa finally turned back into her human form. She immediately ran to the curandera and hugged her, her words muffled in the old woman's side. The curandera smiled sadly and shook her head as she answered, patting Rosa on the back. The three X-men watched from a discrete distance, ready to go, but unwilling to interrupt.

Kurt sighed. "She wants to stay with the curandera. I cannot blame her. But the woman wants her to go with us. 'I will not be here much longer. When God takes me, what will happen to you? You will be in the same place as before. You go with the Americans. Go to a good place.'"

Rosa detached from and looked up at the old woman, her face damp with blotted tears. She lowered her head and nodded as the curandera gave her a kiss on the cheek. Logan, Kurt, and Ororo glanced at each other; it looked like this was the right time. They unzipped their uniforms part way and reached in for their slender billfolds. They were issued two hundred dollars apiece to remain in the suits for field emergencies, and this was most definitely a case for using it. As the curandera walked toward them, Rosa at her side, they put their money into Kurt's now-recovered hand, and he offered it to the woman.

"You help us very much," he told her in Castilian. "You have save Ororo and Rosa. We thank you. We be sorry the bad men come for us and shoot your house. This be all we have. We hope this help fixes your house."

The healer gasped as she beheld the money. It seemed this was more than she had seen at one time for quite a while, if ever. She hesitated.

Kurt gently pressed it into her hand. "Please take it. You be doing God's work here."

Her hand closed around the small stack of tens and twenties. She smiled at all three of them.

"You do God work too," she said in English. "You take Rosa. Take to America to safe place."

"We will," Ororo told her.

Ororo extended her hand to Rosa. The girl looked back at the old woman, hugged her once more, then turned to Ororo and took her hand. Ororo walked slowly up the gangplank with her, mindful of her still tender injury. As the others came up behind her, she strapped Rosa into her seat, then went to the copilot's chair. She was never so relieved as when she could sit down. But she wasn't done yet. She activated the closest comlink and waited for a reply.

Within seconds, she heard Scott's voice. "Cyclops."

"We're about to take off, Cyclops," she said. "We should be back by early afternoon. Kurt's going to be flying while I supervise."

"How are you doing, Storm?" Scott asked. "Will you be in any condition to walk once you get in?"

"I should be. Listen, have Kitty ready to work on something when we land."

"Yes, Logan told me about the box. It sounds like it's going to take a lot of work, but it could yield something useful. How's Rosa?"

Ororo glanced back. Rosa craned her neck to look out the window as best she could. "She's going to need some care, but she's better than last night, at least. And if we could, maybe Hank could do some reconstructive surgery on her lip when he gets back."

"I'm sure he'd be glad to."

The Blackbird's thrusters powered up as they spoke. For some reason, Kurt was taking the time to clean his control yoke. She looked at him curiously. He glanced back at her, then finished his cleaning.

"You don't want to know how I managed to fly this last night," he said softly, apparently in the hopes that Scott wouldn't hear.

"Yeah," Logan said a bit loudly from his seat. "Never seen someone fly with their feet before."

"Flying with his _feet_?" Scott asked.

Kurt glared back at Logan and bared his teeth in a snarl. "If he chews my ass off for this, I'm taking a hunk of yours to replace it."

"You should've let me fly. Then you wouldn't have to worry about it."

"And you would have nosed the Blackbird into the ground in five minutes. I've seen your scores."

"You keep Logan off the controls at all costs," Scott's voice added quickly. "I've seen his scores, too."

Kurt stuck his tongue out at Logan. Behind Ororo, little Rosa stifled a giggle. Storm leaned back in her chair and looked up at the clear morning sky. This day would be just as dry as the day before to this parched land.

"Kurt," she asked softly, "do you think you could handle flying through some rain?"

**_Finis_**


End file.
